The Gay Guide to Glee: Season 2 Episode 8, “Furt”

I’m not the biggest fan of marriage. This isn’t just because it’s not legal for my boyfriend of 20 years and me to tie the knot in the state in which we live. Even if it were, I promise you we wouldn’t be going all matching tuxes and white gold bands and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” Something about the whole institution just grosses me out, in the same way that pet cemeteries or lungfish or gummy hamburger candies do. Blame it on the willful artifice.

So when I heard that this week’s Glee was going to be all about matrimony, I steeled myself against the airdate. Actually “steeled” isn’t the right word. More like, “prepared a giant, vodka-spiked tumbler of Haterade with a sidecar/floater of schadenfreude.” Sadly (happily?), as with many of the real weddings I’ve attended—particularly the ones where I’ve gotten really drunk, taken off my suit, jumped in the pool, and then danced around in my wet underpants until the father of the bride grabbed me by the arm and asked, “Are you insane?”—I actually had a pretty good time. But, also like most weddings, that doesn’t mean there was nothing to complain about (father-in-law speeches, signature drinks, stuffed chicken cutlets). Let’s look at what worked in Furt, and what Furtn’t.The Wedding Pulpit: Maybe it was the wacky modernist church that it was held in (which looked a lot like the one Saarinen did in Columbus, Indiana), or the irresistibly tasteless autumnal color scheme, or the sententious insistence—from the altar!—on the meritless-ness of prayer and the merits of a blendered family, or the insidiously adorable way the kids coupled up and scamper-danced down the aisle, or Finn’s unexpected acquisition of something resembling a personality (and some vertebrae). Or maybe it was the aforementioned vodka drink. Or maybe the fissures opened in my scaly armor by a surfeit of burbling (Bublé-ing?) vats of sentiment. But after Mr. Kurt and Mrs. Finn slipped their fingers in each other’s aureate holes, and Frankenteen gave his pro-bro shout-out to his new nelly sibling, I felt a single tear running down my (porcelain) cheek. I have only two questions: Why did they fire Rosie O’Donnell? And who is that pretty new lady they hired to play Carol Hudson?

The Bully Pulpit: Everyone’s favorite closeted homophobe, Karofsky (played with menace by the mensch-y Max Adler, whom I just interviewed) continues to rage through the halls of McKinley, though his Kurt-ish confrontations moved this week from Sasquatchian to subtly psychotic, their objective being the thieving of the espousal cake topper. This bit of matrimonial misappropriation, and some nasty limp-wristed taunting, leads—with the usual Glee-ful convolution—to the adults getting involved, a conference being called, and the Cryptid kid being kicked to the curb. Of course, this being rural Ohio, the empathetic school board overturns the decision, leaving Kurt no choice but to transfer to Homo Hogwarts (Dalton Academy). I worry for Kurt finally getting what he’s wished for. Also, am I the only one fiendishly hoping that there’s a seedy underbelly to the preppy perfection of this chicken farm?

Manning Up: Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for any sub-plot that involves my three favorite McKinley man-jocks—Mike Chang, Artie Abrams, and Sam Evans—flexing their muscles, particularly in defense of their favorite gay. And I thought the resulting locker-room melee was both well choreographed and wicked HOT. (Though I would have liked ex-American Gladiator/Power Lifter Shannon Bieste to get in a few pile-driving licks). But there was something ever so slightly retrogressive about the girls abdicating this protective role to the dudes, and it then being handled solely by brute force. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if both of the gender groups had found means to confront the situation, ones that didn’t necessarily (or only) degenerate into pure beating?

Sue/Counter-Sue: Any excuse to bring Carol Burnett onto the stage is a decent one in my book. But this self-indulgent, self-marrying, side-track silliness was about as compelling as a hair lollipop. I didn’t so much mind the right-on-the-nose, My Nazi-Hunting Mom is an Emotional Bully correlation as an incentive for Sue’s own mensch-y turn as Kurt’s defender, as much as I did the right-on-the-nose, marriage-on-marriage correlation. I’m not opposed to occasional bits of inanity, but this was 12 minutes of the show that could have been filled with something more interesting (like more fighting scenes, or a plot line for Mercedes, or the above-mentioned idea of the girls doing something intelligent). Also, did I miss it, or did Sue not actually marry herself? I think I only saw the rehearsal. (Which was enough. Though I did love the dress. Maybe reprise it for prom?)